After reading through the reports I’d agree with that.
I think vosa had hoped this would be a benchmark case where an operator would be crucified but it’s not looking to go there way
Talking of 8w day earnings, when I worked for EL they paid subbies about £450/day and that was three years ago. At the time, that was a pretty good rate (according to the ODs) whereas the sand and gravel firms it was around £380-420/day (paid x amount per ton).
There is another firm around here, getting bigger almost every day that pays subbies nearer £500/day…If you aren’t in a rush for your money that is. 
Muckaway:
Talking of 8w day earnings, when I worked for EL they paid subbies about £450/day and that was three years ago. At the time, that was a pretty good rate (according to the ODs) whereas the sand and gravel firms it was around £380-420/day (paid x amount per ton).
There is another firm around here, getting bigger almost every day that pays subbies nearer £500/day…If you aren’t in a rush for your money that is.
He has another 2 late ones coming next week
kr79:
400 a day is rock bottom rates for an 8 wheeler round here and you will be running on a shoe string to keep going working at that rate for any period of time but many do.
130 a day wages
120 a day fuel
120 for lorry costs
Leaves 40 quid a day for profit and any emergency fund
That’s what one of my best mates told me are the rough costs and he runs 8 of his own and does most of his own fitting work.
Wow, I’m WAY out of touch with how rates have risen then. 
Maybe I should go back to work haha? 
We were paid per load, no load then no money. Thank’s for the info anyway.
Pete.
[/quote]
I know it’s a very fast acting electronically controlled cadence braking control system. Its a much improved as it is only working on the wheels that loose grip rather then fully releasing all the brakes & then being reapplied
To my knowledge no one has ever asked the question ‘is it possible’ for ABS not to fail safe.Or for that matter exactly what is the safeguard built into the system that stops a possibly corrupted ABS control signal from causing the system to just remove the brake input from an actuator/s instead of it applying an on/off cadence input ? .IE stuck on a signal for off with no signal for back on in just the same way that the fuel pump latching can intermittently fail to come back on,on a fuel injection ECU,shutting the engine down.Or a crankshaft position sensor and/or associated ECU circuitry fault can cause a misfire or total loss of ignition.On that note how does supposedly mechanically defective brakes create intermittent random brake failure.Also bearing in mind that the intermittent failure in question seems to be connected with repeated ABS warnings.IE check out the horse and rider incident and the problem then being cleared.Or the MOT example of failing then being taken back and passing with no detailed reasons for the failures or the itemised actions taken to rectify them.To the point of previous driver/s saying they are ‘frightened’ of ‘that’ ‘specific’ truck.
[/quote]
If the solenoid valves were all to stick open & bare in mind they are all on separate electrical circuits, the air would drain & the anchor lock chambers would then be applied to slow the vehicle down, hopefully before it runs out of road…
There is no such thing as intermittent brake failure unless you run low on air which is something your gauges or buzzer will give a clue or you cook them & once cooled they will come back to being reasonable brakes again but never 100%, this should be picked up on inspections as the edges of the pad friction material will be more than likely be white or breaking off, worse still the material will have become delaminated from the backing plate.
newmercman:
From what I’ve seen up to now, my conclusion would be that the young lad was driving like young lads do and ran out of talent and brakes at the same time, the condition of the lorry was borderline and the firm had cut a few corners.Death by dangerous driving, nothing more, nothing less.
To be fair without knowing what gear the thing was in or having any accurate assessment of all the individual brake temps we don’t actually know that ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ which is the relevant test in this case.Bearing in mind that no one has much talent at that age because they are just starting to learn it.While over reliance on brakes is a driving flaw at any age and at any point in the learning stage.While what we do know is that he was running at no more than 20 mph having slowed down from 25 mph when it started to run away.
As for vehicle condition his responsibility ends at what would be obvious to a competent driver.In which case that doesn’t seem to fit the issues of the vehicle condition aspects while information related to the thing’s pre accident deceleration performance contained on the tacho would obviously help in that regard.Which,like the which gear issue and accurate brake temp assessments, seems to be strangely missing.
dave docwra:
I know it’s a very fast acting electronically controlled cadence braking control system. Its a much improved as it is only working on the wheels that loose grip rather then fully releasing all the brakes & then being reapplied
To my knowledge no one has ever asked the question ‘is it possible’ for ABS not to fail safe.Or for that matter exactly what is the safeguard built into the system that stops a possibly corrupted ABS control signal from causing the system to just remove the brake input from an actuator/s instead of it applying an on/off cadence input ? .IE stuck on a signal for off with no signal for back on in just the same way that the fuel pump latching can intermittently fail to come back on,on a fuel injection ECU,shutting the engine down.Or a crankshaft position sensor and/or associated ECU circuitry fault can cause a misfire or total loss of ignition.On that note how does supposedly mechanically defective brakes create intermittent random brake failure.Also bearing in mind that the intermittent failure in question seems to be connected with repeated ABS warnings.IE check out the horse and rider incident and the problem then being cleared.Or the MOT example of failing then being taken back and passing with no detailed reasons for the failures or the itemised actions taken to rectify them.To the point of previous driver/s saying they are ‘frightened’ of ‘that’ ‘specific’ truck.
[/quote]
If the solenoid valves were all to stick open & bare in mind they are all on separate electrical circuits, the air would drain & the anchor lock chambers would then be applied to slow the vehicle down, hopefully before it runs out of road…
There is no such thing as intermittent brake failure unless you run low on air which is something your gauges or buzzer will give a clue or you cook them & once cooled they will come back to being reasonable brakes again but never 100%, this should be picked up on inspections as the edges of the pad friction material will be more than likely be white or breaking off, worse still the material will have become delaminated from the backing plate.
[/quote]
There is such a thing as ‘intermittent brake failure’ ‘if’ there is any possibility that an ABS control system can confuse a turning wheel/s with locked wheel/s and release the brakes accordingly.Bearing in mind that electronic control systems are actually as,if not more,likely to fail on an intermittent basis than a permanent one. 
As for unexplained loss of air we’ve actually got evidence of that within the case.Athough there’s no more reason to think that a corrupted ABS control system fault would empty an air system completely any more than a correctly working one would.
Looks like the prosecution realised the cross examination of the vosa examiner was a disaster and have wheeled out a couple of other experts to bolster the case. One is now claiming he thinks the brakes were only twenty something percent efficient and not the 35% that VOSA found and all three can’t agree on the brake temperatures which frankly wouldn’t have been up for discussion if someone with half a clue from VOSA could have relayed to the traffic police, at the scene, to take the brake temperatures even if, for some yet unexplained reason, no-one from VOSA could attend the scene for four hours despite there being a VOSA checkpoint only five miles up the road.
What a farce and muppet show. Unbelievable incompetence, on the part of the authorities, for an accident so serious it had four fatalities.
Own Account Driver:
Looks like the prosecution realised the cross examination of the vosa examiner was a disaster and have wheeled out a couple of other experts to bolster the case. One is now claiming he thinks the brakes were only twenty something percent efficient and not the 35% that VOSA found and all three can’t agree on the brake temperatures which frankly wouldn’t have been up for discussion if someone with half a clue from VOSA could have relayed to the traffic police, at the scene, to take the brake temperatures even if, for some yet unexplained reason, no-one from VOSA could attend the scene for four hours despite there being a VOSA checkpoint only five miles up the road.What a farce and muppet show. Unbelievable incompetence, on the part of the authorities, for an accident so serious it had four fatalities.
What a surprise Ford’s brake temp assessments have unsurprisingly been shown to be bollox.So now the brake performance has been arbitrarily cut to 20 something % .Which as I said the defence would be expected to ask to be referenced against tacho deceleration trace readings.
Carryfast:
Own Account Driver:
Looks like the prosecution realised the cross examination of the vosa examiner was a disaster and have wheeled out a couple of other experts to bolster the case. One is now claiming he thinks the brakes were only twenty something percent efficient and not the 35% that VOSA found and all three can’t agree on the brake temperatures which frankly wouldn’t have been up for discussion if someone with half a clue from VOSA could have relayed to the traffic police, at the scene, to take the brake temperatures even if, for some yet unexplained reason, no-one from VOSA could attend the scene for four hours despite there being a VOSA checkpoint only five miles up the road.What a farce and muppet show. Unbelievable incompetence, on the part of the authorities, for an accident so serious it had four fatalities.
What a surprise Ford’s brake temp assessments have unsurprisingly been shown to be bollox.So now the brake performance has been arbitrarily cut to 20 something % .Which as I said the defence would be expected to ask to be referenced against tacho deceleration trace readings.
KR79 mentioned a case being thrown out due to incompetence by VOSA’s investigation and this seems to be flirting with similar. These bits are unbelievable!
Having not had the wit to measure the brake temperatures, in a timely manner at the scene, they’ve got an expert in to determine them from a colour chart:
Mr Price agreed that the metal oxide produced by heat is easily rubbed away and that therefore the discoloration of the lorry’s brakes happened on the day of the crash.
He said he came to his conclusions about how hot the brakes got that day from known temperatures associated with the discoloration of stainless steel.
He agreed that he did not have the figures for cast iron.
The brake drums on the L8 CMT lorry were made from cast iron.
Mr Row provided a steel tempering colour chart for West Yorkshire Steel.
Mr Price agreed that steel is more like cast iron than stainless steel.
The West Yorkshire Steel showed temperatures of 220C for a straw colour, 290C for dark blue and 320C for grey-blue.
Mr Price said, on that chart, the light blue he saw on the brakes of the lorry was associated with a colour of 310C.
Read more at bathchronicle.co.uk/live-day … hjGEm52.99
Get them from a colour chart, good idea you might think. Well it would be if you weren’t caught out in court using a colour chart for a totally different metal to the one the brake drum was actually made of.
There’s clearly going to be a potential issue with the rate the brakes cool with the truck on its side but don’t worry about that they don’t need to bother themselves with actual science, look at this jaw dropping exchange under cross examination:
Mr Price said that it is accepted that brakes do not work as well when their brake linings become glazed.
He said he did not know how hot the linings had to get before they became glazed.
He said no calculations were done regarding the brake drums based on how long it takes for hot cast iron to cool down.
He accepted the lorry was on its side for four hours before the its brake temperatures were taken but his "gut feel" was that the brakes on both sides of the lorry would have cooled down at about the same rate.
Read more at bathchronicle.co.uk/live-day … O1l1fLC.99
Well that’s alright you useless twerp there’s only four people dead and three people’s liberty and livelihoods at stake why not just do a half-arsed investigation rock up to court and expect the jury to go with whatever your ‘gut feel’ happened to be.
Absolutely unbelievable.
I bet he’s been riding the expert witness gravy train, despite being wholly incompetent for years of the back of this:
David Price is a forensic accident investigator with more than 40 years’ experience.
He was called on by Metropol to examine the crash in which Lady Diana died
Own Account Driver:
Looks like the prosecution realised the cross examination of the vosa examiner was a disaster and have wheeled out a couple of other experts to bolster the case. One is now claiming he thinks the brakes were only twenty something percent efficient and not the 35% that VOSA found and all three can’t agree on the brake temperatures which frankly wouldn’t have been up for discussion if someone with half a clue from VOSA could have relayed to the traffic police, at the scene, to take the brake temperatures even if, for some yet unexplained reason, no-one from VOSA could attend the scene for four hours despite there being a VOSA checkpoint only five miles up the road.What a farce and muppet show. Unbelievable incompetence, on the part of the authorities, for an accident so serious it had four fatalities.
Unbelievable incompetence we see on the roads from the drivers that are never wrong!
Your theory is only what you want to believe and certainly far from accurate.
VOSA are far more competent than lorry drivers believe.
They are disliked by lorry drivers because VOSA catch drivers and their shoddy firms that do not like to look after their vehicles.
FACT.
Own Account Driver:
Carryfast:
Own Account Driver:
Looks like the prosecution realised the cross examination of the vosa examiner was a disaster and have wheeled out a couple of other experts to bolster the case. One is now claiming he thinks the brakes were only twenty something percent efficient and not the 35% that VOSA found and all three can’t agree on the brake temperatures which frankly wouldn’t have been up for discussion if someone with half a clue from VOSA could have relayed to the traffic police, at the scene, to take the brake temperatures even if, for some yet unexplained reason, no-one from VOSA could attend the scene for four hours despite there being a VOSA checkpoint only five miles up the road.What a farce and muppet show. Unbelievable incompetence, on the part of the authorities, for an accident so serious it had four fatalities.
What a surprise Ford’s brake temp assessments have unsurprisingly been shown to be bollox.So now the brake performance has been arbitrarily cut to 20 something % .Which as I said the defence would be expected to ask to be referenced against tacho deceleration trace readings.
KR79 mentioned a case being thrown out due to incompetence by VOSA’s investigation and this seems to be flirting with similar. These bits are unbelievable!
Having not had the wit to measure the brake temperatures, in a timely manner at the scene, they’ve got an expert in to determine them from a colour chart:
Mr Price agreed that the metal oxide produced by heat is easily rubbed away and that therefore the discoloration of the lorry’s brakes happened on the day of the crash.
He said he came to his conclusions about how hot the brakes got that day from known temperatures associated with the discoloration of stainless steel.
He agreed that he did not have the figures for cast iron.
The brake drums on the L8 CMT lorry were made from cast iron.
Mr Row provided a steel tempering colour chart for West Yorkshire Steel.
Mr Price agreed that steel is more like cast iron than stainless steel.
The West Yorkshire Steel showed temperatures of 220C for a straw colour, 290C for dark blue and 320C for grey-blue.
Mr Price said, on that chart, the light blue he saw on the brakes of the lorry was associated with a colour of 310C.
Read more at bathchronicle.co.uk/live-day … hjGEm52.99
Get them from a colour chart, good idea you might think. Well it would be if you weren’t caught out in court using a colour chart for a totally different metal to the one the brake drum was actually made of.
There’s clearly going to be a potential issue with the rate the brakes cool with the truck on its side but don’t worry about that they don’t need to bother themselves with actual science, look at this jaw dropping exchange under cross examination:
Mr Price said that it is accepted that brakes do not work as well when their brake linings become glazed.
He said he did not know how hot the linings had to get before they became glazed.
He said no calculations were done regarding the brake drums based on how long it takes for hot cast iron to cool down.
He accepted the lorry was on its side for four hours before the its brake temperatures were taken but his "gut feel" was that the brakes on both sides of the lorry would have cooled down at about the same rate.
Read more at bathchronicle.co.uk/live-day … O1l1fLC.99
Well that’s alright you useless twerp there’s only four people dead and three people’s liberty and livelihoods at stake why not just do a half-arsed investigation rock up to court and expect the jury to go with whatever your ‘gut feel’ happened to be.
Absolutely unbelievable.
I bet he’s been riding the expert witness gravy train, despite being wholly incompetent for years of the back of this:
David Price is a forensic accident investigator with more than 40 years’ experience.
He was called on by Metropol to examine the crash in which Lady Diana died
Blimey let’s get this right.He actually found some blue drums.He’d obviously also then have found matching glazed linings.But for some reason,unless I’ve missed something,we didn’t get to see this in the reports nor how many nor which specific axles.Nor whether the specific axles matched the script of numerous under performing brakes and only a few working.While what we did see was just a reference to unspecified 250 C brake temps,which ain’t hot enough to cook brakes anyway,contradicted by unspecified colder brake temps and smoking brakes.FFS how difficult can it be to number the axles and which side and provide an accurate assessment of the specific individual brake temps in question.Together with other slightly important information like what gear was the zb thing found in and or did the driver say it was in during the decent of the hill and what was it’s pre accident deceleration performance according to tacho information.
Edit to add who’s ‘Price’ I thought it was Ford who did the brake investigations. 
Uncle Albie:
Own Account Driver:
Looks like the prosecution realised the cross examination of the vosa examiner was a disaster and have wheeled out a couple of other experts to bolster the case. One is now claiming he thinks the brakes were only twenty something percent efficient and not the 35% that VOSA found and all three can’t agree on the brake temperatures which frankly wouldn’t have been up for discussion if someone with half a clue from VOSA could have relayed to the traffic police, at the scene, to take the brake temperatures even if, for some yet unexplained reason, no-one from VOSA could attend the scene for four hours despite there being a VOSA checkpoint only five miles up the road.What a farce and muppet show. Unbelievable incompetence, on the part of the authorities, for an accident so serious it had four fatalities.
Unbelievable incompetence we see on the roads from the drivers that are never wrong!
Your theory is only what you want to believe and certainly far from accurate.
VOSA are far more competent than lorry drivers believe.
They are disliked by lorry drivers because VOSA catch drivers and their shoddy firms that do not like to look after their vehicles.
FACT.
No I have a totally open mind to the cause of the accident. If the operator was consciously cutting corners and putting lives at risk to put a few extra pennies in his pocket then he should certainly be held to account but and it is a big put the prosecution and their witnesses, as the law stands in this country, must prove this to be so beyond reasonable doubt.
Why did the VOSA examiner not attend the scene of a fatal accident promptly and measure the brake temperatures?
Why despite having a huge length of time to prepare his investigation has he totally changed his brake efficiency figure overnight, whilst the case is in court?
I have quoted verbatim exchanges from the cross examination in court.
I do not doubt that Mr Ford is an experienced and competent vehicle examiner where roadside inspections and MOTs are concerned, and whose contribution to keeping vehicles on the road safe has been valuable. He has unfortunately proved hopelessly out of his depth in an accident investigation but VOSA as his employer, with oversight for this role in this, also take a lot of responsibility and the criticism is justified.
I think they heard the type of vehicle involved, a tipper, and like a lot of us probably would have made assumptions regarding maintenance. It was a cold winter’s night so they made a half-arsed effort, at the scene, had the vehicle recovered, expecting to find a long catalogue of defects later and disappeared off home.
They then turned up at the operator’s yard the next day again expecting to find a fleet of vehicles full of defects but instead, found nothing much of note, and a fair wad of parts invoices for the vehicles. They then started on the vehicle recovered and again their original assumptions were now looking on shakier ground but it was too late and they had compromised the integrity of their investigation.
Uncle Albie:
Own Account Driver:
Looks like the prosecution realised the cross examination of the vosa examiner was a disaster and have wheeled out a couple of other experts to bolster the case. One is now claiming he thinks the brakes were only twenty something percent efficient and not the 35% that VOSA found and all three can’t agree on the brake temperatures which frankly wouldn’t have been up for discussion if someone with half a clue from VOSA could have relayed to the traffic police, at the scene, to take the brake temperatures even if, for some yet unexplained reason, no-one from VOSA could attend the scene for four hours despite there being a VOSA checkpoint only five miles up the road.What a farce and muppet show. Unbelievable incompetence, on the part of the authorities, for an accident so serious it had four fatalities.
Unbelievable incompetence we see on the roads from the drivers that are never wrong!
Your theory is only what you want to believe and certainly far from accurate.
VOSA are far more competent than lorry drivers believe.
They are disliked by lorry drivers because VOSA catch drivers and their shoddy firms that do not like to look after their vehicles.
FACT.
Obviously not competent enough to know that 250 C ain’t hot enough to cook brakes to the point of smoking.While at the same time happily telling new drivers to rely on their brakes wherever possible to slow vehicles thereby over loading the brakes.Or to ignore ABS warnings and continue a journey without even establishing whether ABS is guaranteed to fail safe or not. 
Own Account Driver:
No I have a totally open mind to the cause of the accident. If the operator was consciously cutting corners and putting lives at risk to put a few extra pennies in his pocket then he should certainly be held to account but and it is a big put the prosecution and their witnesses, as the law stands in this country, must prove this to be so beyond reasonable doubt.
- 1
Although I’m more interested in the fact that we’ve got a probably traumatised young naive new driver facing a life changing decision one way or the other in court.If he’s going to go down for this then the evidence,against him personally, needs to also be beyond reasonable doubt.
There are other anomalies with the forenesic examination of this lorry. It has been stated that the drums were removed before the RBT so that evidence of discolouration was not lost.
Tipper brake drums which have not been off for a long time are difficult to remove, one would certainly need to wind the brakes off in order to do so. That would then mean that they would have to be reset exactly as they were before the RBT - hardly easy to get right. The vehicle was substantially damaged, I will allow that there is probably a weighbridge certificate to establish its gross weight on the day, however so far it has not been stated that the vehicle was reloaded to the same GVW for the Roller Brake Test. If it was not reloaded, which would not have been easy at a VoSA test station, then the RBT figures given are virtually meaningless. One would expect figures from an unladen vehicle not to reach 50% efficiency.
Missing entirely from evidence about this RBT is whether any wheels locked or not. ( I expect not, but the point should have been made). We are being led to believe that roller Brake Testing is the holy grail, but those who present vehicles know that an entirely different set of figures (and pass/fail) can be on the print out if the test is repeated, likewise the manner in which whoever is in the cab applies the brake can have a significant effect on the resulting efficiency of an individual wheel brake. Before computerised RBT machines became the norm, many VoSA testers confronted with a wheel brake not quite making the required reading, would keep the rollers running to heat up the linings while observing the reading steadily creeping up and often locking out. Was this test repeated to confirm the results?
The VoSA man has made a point that he considers 54% efficiency to be poor enough to require a vehicle to be kept under observation - it would be interesting to hear just what level of efficiency he considers to be satisfactory and furthermore to provide evidence from VoSA records of how many vehicles do achieve in excess of 54%.
There has also been much made of ‘glazing’ to brake linings. Absolutely zero mention so far that glazing of the brake linings is also a symptom of low surface temperature caused by light braking, which results in poor efficiency when roller tested. Failure to at least explain this to the jury leaves the path open for appeal.
Own Account Driver:
Muckaway:
Agree with what Kr79 said, another tinpot tipper firm happy to run rejects from Truck Trader, hauling for much bigger firms for much smaller rates. Just the same around here, firms buy bargain bin clapped out tippers, stick a few silly lights and badges on, open up a facebook page and away they go…On £400/ day rates.Except they found no safety critical defects on the other five trucks on a surprise yard visit the next day, not even a tyre defect. I would also presume they were green light on OCRS or I would have thought it would have been mentioned by the prosecution otherwise.
Is this right, then.
This outfit had a yard with five other trucks in it that were pretty much fault free?
Then why give this lad a truck with a history of brake problems and not one of the others - where the ■■■■ is the duty of care here?
Or is it me being too paternal (and I don’t have kids)?
Surely it’s quite normal to give the new guy the old heap to drive.
Another point about this pretty pee poor vehicle exam on the prosecution side was a point made about the broken bracket that they seem to focusing on. It wasnt examined until 15 months after the event and it was stored in a plastic bag. The examiner admitted the part could rusted in this time, and he thought it was covered in mud and not quarry lime cos it wasn’t white, thus made the assumption the part had been fitted for a long time…
It seems the prosecution doesn’t actually really have much to go on and are just trying to bring up any tiny little issue and have “experts” try to make it something that it isn’t.
109LWB:
The examiner admitted the part could rusted in this time, and he thought it was covered in mud and not quarry lime cos it wasn’t white,
The examiner needs to get off his arse and go and inspect the quarry where the trucks loaded out of. They wont find white lime there because it’s a sand and gravel pit. The ballast is a golden brown/yellow colour, I should know I’ve been working out of there this week.
The “mud” might be there because Grittenhams’ tip at the restoration phase of said quarry. Not long before the Bath crash, I was actually tipping alongside the truck involved, probably the end of January as my paternity leave hadn’t long ended. I only took notice of the truck at the time because of it’s private reg plate; L8 CMT. Ex Chris Miller Transport of Lechlade.
Carryfast- A 19 year old has a maximum of 2 years DRIVING EXPERIENCE. A 30 year old probably has 10 YEARS DRIVING EXPERIENCE.
10 years + experience on the roads and a 30 year old, is surely on average a safer bet than a 19 year old with 2 years driving experience.